Imperfect Harmony (8 page)

“Don’t you have a helmet?” John frowned.

“I do, but it was cold and my hat doesn’t fit underneath it. I know,” he added, seeing the disapproval on John’s face. “My mum always has a go at me too. Anyway. Thanks again for today, so much. It was awesome having you on the piano. Do you want to come back next week?”

“I promised Mrs Pickering a tune, and I always keep my promises.” John smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners and his lips pink against the grey of his beard.

Rhys hesitated, and then in a rush of boldness, he asked, “Do you want to get together and practise? It was great today, singing the harmonies and stuff, and we both did a good job of improvising. But it might be cool to get together and try some more things out. What do you think?”

“Yeah.” John’s smile widened. “I’d really like that. Now I’m singing and playing again, I can’t get enough of it. I didn’t realise how much I’d missed it until I got it back.”

“When suits you?”

“How about tomorrow?” John suggested. “Do you want to come to mine, as I have a piano there?”

“Yes, that makes sense. Morning or afternoon?”

“Afternoon, say… threeish?”

“Cool. I’ll see you then.” Rhys beamed. Even the rain couldn’t dampen his spirits now. The prospect of an afternoon jamming with John made his heart lift and flutter like a bird taking flight.

CHAPTER SEVEN

John woke on Sunday morning with a strange feeling in his chest—a good strange feeling that he struggled to identify as his brain came online. As he stared at his ceiling and the fog of sleep cleared, he realised what it was. Or rather what they were, because it was a cocktail of emotions, and all of them had been missing from John’s life for too long: excitement, anticipation, contentment, and even a dash of happiness. All feelings he’d almost forgotten existed. Weighed down by grief for so long, then by the numbing blanket of depression and anxiety, John had lost the ability to feel anything at all.

Playing at Beech House yesterday had been a wonderful experience. The music, the thrill of performing with another musician, the wonderful connection when they’d improvised harmonies together, and most of all the reaction from the audience had made John feel good. They’d loved it, and there had been such pleasure on their faces. No wonder Rhys loved leading his choir so much. Making other people happy was good for the soul.

Rhys.

John closed his eyes again and stretched under the bedcovers, letting thoughts of Rhys fill his head. His cock was full and heavy in his underwear, as it usually was in the morning. He normally ignored it, viewing it as an inconvenience. He reached a tentative hand down and pressed his palm against the hardness, stroking himself through his clothes and letting arousal grow. He did this in the shower once or twice a week, a perfunctory wank to ease the pressure if his morning wood was particularly persistent. The release was purely physical, and he rarely thought about anything while he did it other than the sensation of his hand.

Today though, he allowed himself to imagine Rhys. He thought about touching him, peeling Rhys’s clothes away from that lithe body. He wondered how Rhys would look naked, what his cock was like, what it would feel like to kiss him. Sweat prickled on John’s skin under the warm bedclothes and his cock was leaking sticky pre-come into his underwear. John pushed the covers down and kicked off his briefs; his cock reared up in his hand, thick and flushed, the head exposed as he slid his hand down towards his balls. Suddenly close to orgasm already, John paused, breathing hard, wanting to make this unexpected pleasure last a little longer. This felt so good, different to anything he’d felt since David.

Don’t think about David.

John started to stroke himself again. David would want him to enjoy this. He’d been a hedonist, all about the pleasure of the flesh. If there was a heaven, he’d be up there cheering John on. That thought made John let out a gasp that was somewhere between a laugh and a sob. He closed his eyes and imagined Rhys kneeling over him, his lips parted as he looked up at John through dark lashes before lowering his mouth over the head of John’s dick and—

“Fuck!” John came all over himself in thick, hot spurts.

Afterwards he lay gazing at the ceiling, wondering how he was going to look Rhys in the eye later. It was always awkward being faced with the object of your masturbatory fantasies and having to make conversation with them. He’d been a blushing mess around David for weeks.

Oh, well. It’s a little late to be worrying about that now
.

After breakfast, John popped around to see Maggie.

“Did you want me to take Billy out again?” he offered.

“I can manage today, thanks, John. The doctor says short walks are good for me, and I don’t think Billy needs a long run after yesterday. I don’t know what you did to him. He hardly moved from his bed for the rest of the day.”

John chuckled. “Don’t blame me, blame Starry, Rhys’s dog. She’s a collie and she runs circles around him, but he tries to keep up.”

“I didn’t know you’d been walking with Rhys.” She fixed him with a speculative gaze.

John felt a flush creep up his neck to his cheeks. “Yes. He walks his mum’s dog at weekends. We happened to be out at the same time.” John didn’t mention that their meeting had been planned.

“Oh, that reminds me. How did it go at Beech House yesterday?” Maggie’s face brightened. “Did you have fun playing?”

When John had delivered Billy back to her yesterday, he’d stayed for a cup of tea. In the course of their conversation, John told her his plans for Saturday afternoon. Maggie had been delighted.

“It was great, thanks. And yes, I enjoyed it. They were a wonderful audience, and it was good to play the piano again.”

“Will you be getting your fiddle out soon too?”

Anxiety gripped John’s lungs as he thought about it, but he resisted, letting the panic subside and forcing his breathing to stay slow and steady. “I’m not sure. Maybe?”

It was the first time that his answer to that question, whether from Maggie or within himself, had been anything other than a categorical no. John supposed that was progress. A flicker of hope stirred in his heart at the thought of being able to take joy in playing his violin again, part of his life for so long it had been an extension of himself. Losing it had been like losing a limb.

“You’ll know when the time’s right,” Maggie said, drawing him out of his thoughts.

John nodded slowly. There was a long pause. “Anyway,” he said brightly, “I’m going to Tesco this morning, did you want to come? Or do you need me to get anything for you?”

“If I’m taking Billy out, I think that will be enough walking for me for one day, so if you don’t mind, I can give you a list and some cash? I don’t need much, just a few things.”

“Of course.”

So Maggie wrote a list of items and gave John a couple of twenties. “That should cover it.”

“Okay, I’ll go later this morning, and I’ll drop this round before lunch.”

“Perfect. Thanks, John.”

After lunch, John rushed around tidying up before Rhys came. Living alone, and busy during the week when he was working, John had got into bad habits about leaving his washing up for days at a time. He’d never been a particularly tidy person, but first his mum and then David had kept him in check, but he’d reverted to his natural state of leaving things lying around and letting clutter mount up on any available surface.

Once he’d got the downstairs looking respectable, he gave the upstairs bathroom a quick clean in case Rhys wanted to use it—it was the only toilet in the house. He closed his bedroom door, ignoring the rumpled bed and dirty clothes lying on the floor. Rhys wouldn’t be seeing that.

Ready too early, John tried to sit and read for a while, but he couldn’t concentrate. He was strung tight with nervous tension as he waited for Rhys to arrive. Excitement and anticipation rose at the prospect of seeing him again, at making music together. It wasn’t a bad feeling, but it was all-consuming and made reading impossible because his mind kept wandering.

Instead he went into the music room and sat down at the piano. Opening one of the books he’d borrowed from Rhys, he started to play through some other songs he thought might go down well at Beech House. He skipped over “The Leaving of Liverpool,” as he was already confident with that one, and paused on the next page. “Danny Boy.”

Struck by memories like a blow to the chest, he stared at the notes until they blurred. He blinked, willing the tears away, but he could hear the tune in his head, and the yearning to play it made his fingers ache. He clenched his fists on the piano keys. This wasn’t the right instrument.

Moving on autopilot, not allowing himself to think too much about what he was doing, he went to get his violin case out of the corner. He brushed the dust off it and opened it. The case let out a creak of disuse.

His violin lay there, nested in blue velvet. He ran his fingertip reverently over the polished wood.

“My beauty,” he whispered. “I’m sorry I’ve neglected you for so long.”

His heart thumped hard at what he was about to do—

The doorbell rang, startling him. Drawing in a shaky breath, John waged an internal battle with himself. He closed the case, shook his head, and lifted the lid again. Leaving it lying open on the table, he went to let Rhys in.

Rhys’s bright smile dragged John out of his memories.

“Hi.” Rhys was weighed down with his guitar on his back, a cycle helmet in one hand, and a pannier in the other.

“Hello, come in.” John stood aside, holding the door open. He peered past him to see Rhys’s bike leaned up against the wall outside. “Do you want to bring your bike in? You can leave it in the hallway if you want.”

“No, it’s fine.” Rhys’s shoulder brushed against John’s chest as he squeezed past, and John’s heart leapt at the contact. “It’s locked, and it’s only an old crappy one anyway.”

“Okay. Go on through,” John said. “That door on the left.”

Rhys walked into the music room with John on his heels. “Nice,” he said approvingly. “This is a lovely space to practise in. There isn’t room for much in my flat.” His gaze lit on the violin and he turned questioningly to John. “You’ve been playing the fiddle?”

“Not yet. I was thinking about it when the doorbell rang.”

Something crossed Rhys’s face—regret, sympathy? “Sorry,” he said. “Bad timing.”

John shrugged. “It’s fine.”

“So, what do you want to work on?” Rhys propped his guitar against the table and put the pannier down beside the violin. He opened it and rummaged about for a moment. “Before I forget….” He pulled out a book and handed it to John with a huge smile on his face. “I found the score for ‘You Make Me Feel So Young.’ I knew I’d seen it somewhere. It was in a book I’d tucked away on a shelf and forgotten about. I’d never bothered with it because it’s mostly stuff that works better on a keyboard than a guitar. Here, do you want to give it a try? He opened the book to a page he’d marked with a Post-it and set it down on the piano, covering the music John had open.

“Sure.” John took his seat on the piano stool and scanned the piece. He knew the song. He’d never played it before, but it looked manageable. Luckily his sight-reading skills hadn’t deteriorated too much during his hiatus. He started picking his way carefully through the introduction.

“Will it put you off if I sing?” Rhys asked.

“No, feel free.” John carried on playing, and Rhys joined in with the vocals.

John stumbled over the notes a few times but managed to keep going. The lyrics made him smile. He’d never paid too much attention to them before. It was a sweet, joyful song, and Rhys sang it beautifully.

When they finished, John turned to smile at Rhys. “That was great, but I don’t think you’re qualified to be singing this at your age. You
are
young.”

Rhys laughed. The sound was a little hollow and a shadow flitted across his features. “I don’t always feel it.”

“How old are you, anyway?” John asked, cringing at himself for being so nosy, but he wanted to know the answer.

“Twenty-three,” Rhys said. “What about you?” He raised his eyebrows in challenge.

John could hardly blame him for asking, seeing as John had started it. “Forty-two.” He felt a tiny bit relieved the gap between them was less than twenty years. But he was, depressingly, still old enough to be Rhys’s dad. That was a sobering thought, especially given his morning escapades.

Rhys didn’t comment. Instead he got the
Songs of the Sixties
book down and opened it. He flicked through to find what he wanted and placed it on the stand for John. “This is another one I think they’ll like. My gran would, anyway.”

“Okay.” John turned his attention back to the music, glad of the excuse to stop thinking about his age, and Rhys’s age, and why having a crush on him was a hopeless waste of energy. Then again, having a crush at all was an unfamiliar feeling. Maybe he should embrace it as a positive sign. He just needed to find someone more appropriate to be the subject of his affections.

John played through several more songs that Rhys suggested, singing along with them as best he could while splitting his attention between the lyrics and the score. Rhys improvised some harmonies that sounded great, and John was excited about the prospect of polishing them ready to perform on a Saturday soon.

“How about some guitar ones next? It sounds great when we harmonise. You’re a natural bass, so I can stay higher and you can either stick to the tune or split off below it in some places. I thought it would be fun to mess around with some different arrangements.”

“Sure.”

Rhys seated himself in a chair and started tuning his guitar. John turned around on the piano stool so he was facing him. He watched Rhys’s strong, slender fingers as they twisted the pegs and plucked at the strings. Rhys sucked his lower lip into his mouth as he frowned in concentration and then released it, wet and shiny, as he made another adjustment to the A string. John stared, his mind transported back to his fantasies of the morning. The stirring in his underwear took him by surprise, the sudden arousal unfamiliar and unwelcome. He pushed away the thoughts immediately, snapping his gaze away from Rhys and looking at the grey sky outside the window instead.